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Don’t get me wrong I have nothing again Avery Johnson. I’ll admit I hated Avery as a player. I thought he was the worst starting PG in the league, but I respected his drive, toughness and how he overcame adversity to have a long NBA career. He was the epitome of a good floor general who made up for his lack of talent by outsmarting his opponents and being an extension of the head coach. Everyone knew one day he’d someday become a head coach, most would agree they thought he’d be a good head coach in the NBA.

I’m here to write I think he’s an overrated coach who should not be back in Dallas next year. He’d be a better of learning the ropes on a lottery bound team instead of having the pressure to  bring a championship to a title starved city like Dallas.

In AJ’s defense, he’s a young coach who took over a championship caliber team w/o any prior coaching experience. Talk about a tough job! Not only did he take over a contender, but he had to replace Don Nelson who was responsible for turning around one of the worst franchises in the NBA during the 90’s .

When he took over at the end of the 2005 season you could not find a person in Dallas who did not think Avery was exactly what the Mavs needed. A new younger voice who’s going to stress defense and would relate to his players…keywords “relate to his players”.

How long can Avery hold on to his job in Dallas?

Does Avery relate well to his players? Yes. Is he respected in the locker room? Yes. Have his players tuned him out? Possibly.

To me it seems as if the Mavs don’t play as hard as they did when he took over in 05. It’s very obvious that he’s overcoaching and trying to control the game too much by calling every play. The Mavs have one of the most simple offenses in the league and they are just plain boring to watch. To be honest, the most exciting thing about watching the Mavs is seeing them choke in close games and continue to show they’re how mentally fragile they are as a team.

I blame Avery for the teams lack of mental toughness and their inability to close out games. Avery should be replaced as soon as the Hornets put the nail in the coffin of the Mavs season.

Here’s why:

He makes some terrible decisions in the playoffs or big games…

Examples:

- he once designed a game plan to let steve nash score on his team at will because he thought nash was more dangerous as a distributor
- he rarely gave marquis daniels playing time in the finals or makes adjustments to take advantage of mismatches
- rested his starters too much at the end of last season, and kept them out of the last game which eventually got the warriors (a team they struggled w/ all season) in the playoffs setting up a 1st round matchup
-team leads NBA in victories and he changes his lineup to play the 8th seeded team
-keeps J Kidd on bench @ the end of spurs game
-designs a play for J Kidd to shoot a 3 in the last few seconds of a game.
-gets outcoached on a regular basis by veteran head coaches

The Mavs are down 0-2 and headed back to Dallas for two must win games this weekend against the Hornets. They’ll have to beat them 4 out of the next 5 games to avoid back to back first round exits.

I’m interested in seeing how can Mavericks owner Mark Cuban justify keeping Johnson around if the team gets ousted in the 1st round again. If I’m not mistaken, the Mav’s havent won a road game in the playoffs since Drew Bledose was leading the Cowboys offense. They’ lost 10 out of their last 12 playoff games and 8 straight on the road…

It’s crazy to think that just 2 years ago Avery and the Mavs were minutes away from a 3-0 lead in the NBA finals. Now it seems like they’re weeks away from rebuilding. The first step in the Mavs rebuilding plans should be to start with a new coach.

-Rafael